by Tria Stebbing.

It is very popular now to use animals as therapy, and as we come, it is hoped, to the end of another winter, I can certainly say they help me through.
We all have those dark days, days that are gloomy, grey and cold, and the animals still need seeing to. There is no option, they need hay or feed, or their feet seen to, and they rely on their humans to come and do those things for them.
Our sheep appear to have the ability to hear the truck pull up outside the gate, and all come running to greet us, making a lot of noise and all falling over each other. It then becomes a race to see if I can get to the feeder before them. If I am lucky, I can offload the sheep mix in relative calm – if they have all come running, it is each to his own, and they have been known to knock me off of my feet.

At the weekend, we took the pregnant ewes away from the rest of the flock so that we can feed them a bit more than the others and monitor use of the lick bucket etc. We took the sheep trailer into the paddock, with a view to building a race – an enclosed runway – for them to get into before loading.
It is always a difficult job – as you get them all where you want them to be, one will break away, taking a few with it. Having parked the truck, we turned around to see three of the most difficult to catch calmly walking up the ramp into the truck, without a care in the world. They were not the ones that needed catching, but it was pretty impressive.
It did not take too long to load the pregnant ewes – we realised how fat they had got when they all squeezed in – so it was off up the road to the new paddock.

What we were not ready for was for the ewe lambs to become very hyperactive and to start to circle the truck, running very fast, round and round. Having not been that close to the older ladies, we were very surprised.
We then had to open the paddock gate, drive the truck and trailer through, and shut the gate before the lambs got out.
By this time, they had whipped themselves into a frenzy, and I was faced with the truck being driven at the gap, while I held onto the gate, and the lambs frantically running towards me calling the adults.
The truck won – just. The resident runty lamb managed to squeeze through at the last moment, although luckily gave up when she realised her friends were on the other side.
Spring is definitely trying to make an appearance at the field. Previously laid hedges are shooting and the daffodils have put on a very early show of yellow. We are now deciding whether to graze off the longer grass here and cut it for bales, or bring the rams back to graze and not cut.

The resident deer are still enjoying the sun under the hedge and we have everything crossed they will raise their young again in the safety of the long grass.